Below are the 8 most recent journal entries recorded in Musicians Against Sweatshops' LiveJournal:

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2004
12:08 pm	Movin' and Shakin' Hi, I'm Trina abd I'm the new MASS coordinator. I'm very excited to work with Musicians and others who are all about ridding the music industry of sweatshops. I have been doing labor rights activism for 4 years now and I have found it to be both challenging and thrilling. Right now, MASS is looking for volunteers to plan benefit concerts that will promote kickass musicians and sweat free clothing. If you down with benefit concerts, check out www.nosweatshop.org/benefitconcerts.htm for more info. So stay up to date with what MASS is working on be sure to sign up for the e-newsletter at the bottom right hand corner of MASS's homepage Well thats it for now Peace, Trina Current Mood: anxious (Comment on this)
Saturday, November 15th, 2003
1:33 pm	many things... So there have been many things going on.... First off, Lynne, our pr coordinator had her baby! Congrats to her, i've got a few pictures right ( here ) so that is awesome for her. however... now we have to say goodbye to her so she can spend all the wonderful time she can with the baby:) this is leaves me, adam, tom, and malina...and we're workin hard! but as hard as we're working, things still aren't getting out as fast as we planned. Hopefully this weekend we'll get the press kits all put together. We did get the MASS Mall up and running though! You can find it at http://www.nosweatshop.net It looks really great. The merchandisers you can buy from are No Sweat Apparel, Sweat-X, Union Jean & Apparel, Union Threads, Unionwear, and Powells.com. We also added more bands onto nosweatshop.org with more mp3s and all that fun stuff. Adam took a trip down to DC and now we have the support of the AFL-CIO, 'Americas Union Movement," and they are a co-sponser of the MASS Mall. Reverend Billy, the leader of the 'Church of Stop Shopping' is also backing the MASS initiative. We've also gained 11 volunteers! I'll be giving them their first task pretty soon. So this movement is coming along slowly but surely. I think it's going to start growing very quickly once the press kits get out there. I can't wait. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 1st, 2003
10:15 pm	:) Sooo... Thank you to Josh Grossberg for mentioning MASS in his Oct 31 article on E!Online!! I thought it was very very cool that we just sent around the first press release and already we got a mention in an article about P. Diddy on E!online....that is just incredible to me. The article can be found here: http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,12821,00.html Interning at Interscope Records this summer it was like I was obviously helping out, but I wasn't doing anything directly to help Interscope because there were already thousands of employees and interns,and sure if it weren't for me people wouldn't get their music videos sent to them, but ya know...it wasnt thatttt important. But this is a big deal, and a big cause, and it's amazing that something that our little team created is part of the big picture now. It's awesome. I love it. I showed the article to my Mom because I was so excited. :) Alright that's it for now. Peace. Current Mood: jubilant (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 29th, 2003
1:16 am	Oh Diddy... so many jokes i could crack right now... like, he really ain't goin nowhere... and he's a bad boy for life, but not in a good way.. ok those jokes were pretty lame i know.. it doesn't surprise me that he'd be using sweatshops though seeing how he treated his own band "Da Band" on making the band this summer... hello he made them walk from his office to Brooklyn to buy him cheesecake!! it's a very far walk! And he gets pedicures in his office while he's talking to clients... weirdd. anyway, read on to see how Puffy/P Diddy/Sean Combs/#1 Bad Boy has been using sweatshop labor for his own fashion label. NYT/October 28, 2003 ( A Hip-Hop Star's Fashion Line Is Tagged With a Sweatshop Label ) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 26th, 2003
12:25 pm	musicians against sweatshops Music, Fashion and Progressive Politics Mix in Ambitious Attempt to Rock the Garment Industry by New Organization, Musicians Against Sweatshops Boston, MA (10/21/03)- Musicians Against Sweatshops (MASS) is calling on socially conscious musicians to take a stand against the exploitation of garment workers. Launched this summer at the massive Glastonbury festival in the UK by folk rock legend Billy Bragg, Ethical Threads UK and No Sweat Apparel, MASS is taking aim at the multi billion dollar music merchandising business. Their new recruitment website, NoSweatShop.org rolled out this week. "Its time for activist musicians to step up and put things right with their own merchandising," said Bragg, "We cannot make the case for a better world while tacitly supporting exploitation." Bragg has been joined by bands such as Chumbawumba and Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders. Many more major acts have expressed interest and are expected to sign up during the fall recruitment drive, according to national coordinator, Lynne Lyman. “But we’re just as interested in lining up scores of indie bands” said Lyman. “We want to get to the next generation of major acts before they get locked into merchandising contracts with sweat shoppers.” MASS isn’t planning a benefit to raise funds and awareness. Musicians who sign up commit to sourcing their merchandise from union shops or worker-owned cooperatives. The organization is also launching a virtual mall for the handful of companies and designers that are providing a union alternative. The mall rolls out in late November, just in time for holiday shopping. “We’re very hopeful that MASS can help sustain this fledgling industry,” said No Sweat Apparel founder Adam Neiman. “There are a lot of people that don’t want to buy from sweatshops but have no idea where to find an alternative.” The musicians will notify their fans by email of the mall’s existence and encourage them to shop there this holiday season. Free (and legal) downloads of artists’ songs are expected to draw traffic too. “This is a really important next stage in the struggle,” said Ben McKean, a leader at United Students Against Sweat Shops. “When the garment trade discovers that this is what the youth want that’s when they will produce it.” USAS has endorsed the project and is putting its national network of campus organizations behind it. MASS is finding help from all sorts of musical genres, from gospel folk rockers to riot grrl bands. They are recruiting regional representatives in all major markets in the US, UK, and Canada to spread the word about the initiative. Lyman anticipates a string of local benefits coupled with fashion shows in the Spring. “That should be a fun way to get a lot of people involved, but right now MASS is pretty focused on launching the virtual mall for holiday 2003.” Love music and hate sweatshops? Then check out Musicians Against Sweatshops at www.NoSweatShop.org. For more information contact Lynne@NoSweatShop.org (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 4th, 2003
2:45 pm	here's an article adam sent me about sweatshop labor for cosmetics. I thought it was an intereting and depressing read... ( Where your eyelashes come from... ) (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 2nd, 2003
1:25 am	Soo I was talking to my friend today about my internship, and he's in a band and said he'd love to help out. He was like, I don't know anything about sweatshops...but it must be a pretty shitty lifestyle! And he also said he wouldn't even know if he had sweatshops making his merchandise cos it's not like they advertise it or anything! cos obviously people aren't going to go around making it a point to say they use sweatshops ya know? I told him we could give him a list of places once they start to make merchandise. I think that's a big problem actually... people don't know much about sweatshops, hell even I don't know too much about it, and if it wasn't for my public relations class last year I wouldn't even had known about the whole Nike case that went on. I had to do a big case study on it so I read all about that sort of stuff last year. I mean most people either don't know or don't think about who made the clothes they are wearing. I'm guilty of that, but the more I think about it the worse I feel. But, it's hard to know unless you sat down and memorized a list of companies which most people are obviouly not going to do. And, what company is going to want a big list circulating stating that they use child labor and make old ladies do their dirty work. Yeahhh I'm just ranting... I'm done now hah. Peace. Current Mood: contemplative Current Music: Audioslave - Show Me How to Live (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 28th, 2003
2:16 pm	1st day of interning! Today was the first of many fun and exciting brainstorming sessions with the staff of Musicians Against Sweatshops! I wasn't really sure what to expect, since I had never been to a 'staff meeting' of any kind before. I would think that this one was a little different than most. We met in Davis Sq. in Somerville at a really hip cafe, but we only stayed for a quick introduction and then moved to a place we thought would be less noisy! However, we ended up in a very loud Irish pub type of a place....but continued the meeting anyway. We set the priorities straight for the publicity campaign. I'm going to be doing this here weblog, and figure out how to sum up who/what/why/when/how of the company into a few sentences! Malina and Tom are going to be working along with me as interns. I can already tell that we have a great group dynamic, and our supervisors, Adam and Lynne, are really chill and laid back, but at the same time very passionate about what they do. I think since they're so confident that we can get MASS off the ground and really kickin that it will all work out and end up being a fantastic project and movement! And a big plus...even though we're working for free as student interns, Adam said we'll be working for food! haha, how awesome:) yum yum, can't wait for the next meeting! (Comment on this)